1. Roslyn Mould, Humanists International & Why Humanism Now?

What does it truly mean to be a humanist in today's world?

In this episode, James & AJ from Central London Humanists discuss their personal journeys and why start a humanism podcast now?

Plus guest interview with Rosyln Mould, Vice President of Humanists International

Transcript

James H: 0:01

Hello and welcome to this first episode of the Humanism Podcast brought to you by the Central London Humanists. My name is James. I'll be your regular host and I'm part of the committee here at CLH the Central London Humanists, and I'm joined by who's going to be my regular co-host, slash primary guest, aj, also a member of the Central London Humanists.

AJ: 0:24

Hi James.

James H: 0:26

Great. So you're probably thinking why on earth would we start yet another podcast out there? In particular, we're seeing a rise in a lot of other humanist podcasts as well. So, aj, why do you think it's important to have a humanism podcast and why were you keen to be involved?

AJ: 0:47

It's a shame.

AJ: 0:47

Yeah, well, I think it was a great idea that you suggested it initially a few months ago when we discussed it, and also from our experience of being organisers on the ground in London and also further afield, talking to people on the street, people who are in the kind of humanism, faith and belief space and also people who aren't.

AJ: 1:10

There's a lack of knowledge really about humanism, you think, depending on the numbers in the UK, maybe it's in hundreds of thousands. Essentially, membership of humanists in the UK the main national charity is 100,000 members and supporters, depending on how you slice it. So we think there's a big height yet to be reached in terms of the ceiling of where we can go with advocating humanism, explaining what it is, both in terms of evidence-based science and relevance to many of the discussions going on in current affairs today misinformation, but also morality in the post-truth world In so many ways, spirituality being spiritual but not religious. So in so many of these ways I think and we both agree humanism provides a framework that's not only for people in the UK and the West but globally, to navigate the challenges of the 21st century. So it's a very broad potential scope, but let's see where we go.

James H: 2:15

Yeah, I agree, I think I've been involved with our group now for about two years and I think, like most people, I came to humanism maybe about five or six years ago and had that realization of oh, this is what I am, once you learn what it's about.

James H: 2:31

And we're really hoping to cover in a bit more detail over the coming weeks what humanism is, what humanist stances might be on various political or ethical issues. But I agree, I think part of the reason for starting this is one to highlight a lot of the initiatives that are happening. I mean, I've been overwhelmed by everything that humanist international does, humanist UK and even our own group. There's so much going on that I think people aren't aware about. But also I think, as you mentioned, that so many of the major topics and discussions that are happening in the world at the moment, humanism has a lot to say and I think humanism can help navigate some of these more tricky issues. So it's possibly never been a more important time to look about it and maybe identify yourself as a humanist, and this is what I believe.

AJ: 3:27

Yeah, and having a regular podcast format is so popular now and I'm a voracious consumer of podcasts I mean, I also love reading and I love the multiple methods as well but having a podcast that you can listen to the audio or the video as well easily bring in global guests and guests with a variety of backgrounds and just have a regular digest of here's what, both for our existing members, supporters who are part of the humanist movement because there's a coherence that needs to be achieved there, I think as well to stop to kind of keep people abreast of what's happening. As you say, even for us it's just really sometimes quite manic to try to keep on top of everything People in the movement, keeping them in sync and abreast of OK, not maybe not all of the events, but at least what we feel through our network and through our committee and through our colleagues who work in various humanist groups at various levels, keeping them and us all abreast about what's happening, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, being a visible beacon for other people. I mean, we know, looking at various census, statistics and data in the UK, that very, very large percentages of the population, depending on the age, demographics, from 40 to 70% or more, depending on which age code will you look at have broadly humanist, aligned views, but they're not active in the movement. I mean, OK, it doesn't have to be. We're not saying whether that's movement or humanist, UK or central London humanist, it doesn't matter. But any kind of humanist local group, affiliated or not to the official humanist movements globally, it doesn't matter.

AJ: 5:05

But then it doesn't seem to be active. They seem to be expressing private views which are not really translating into tackling the challenges that we have. For example, in the UK, a Christian background and tradition that is a bit more than a tradition and actually is intruding onto the everyday lives, policymaking affecting people in an unfair way as compared to other faith and belief systems. For that to be challenged and tackle the kind of none of the above mass that's quite quiet, needs to be reached out to and maybe prompted and stimulates it a bit to be more active. So having that regular digest is something that I'm looking forward to as part of being an organizer and a participant and involvement with this podcast is it will kind of maybe force me to streamline my thinking and get into the habit of paying more attention to human resources than maybe I do already, which is certainly not enough.

James H: 6:09

Yeah, that's great and I think that's definitely part of the aim is to encourage more people to identify and proactively engage with movement. Well, and maybe we can discuss, going forward, whether we think calling humanism a movement is the right attitude. I suppose you know. How should we be involved, what should we be campaigning for or how should we encourage more people to join us and sort of form the debate? So, yeah, I think really what we're thinking to do and we're open as well to use the feedback, but our aim each week is to have a discussion around some of the key topics that are happening in the world.

James H: 6:52

The key themes highlight some of the major events that are going on. As mentioned, we're both based in London, so we'll have a bit of a bias towards our local events, but happy to highlight humanist and secular events all around the world, also have some interviews with guests and bring forward some voices, not just from our own group but from, again, particularly humanist international, humanist UK and anyone really who's active in this space, and I think those personal stories are really important. So, given this is our first episode and people are getting to know us, still, aj, it'd be great to find out a bit about your background, what led you to humanism and your role currently within the movement.

AJ: 7:41

Yeah, it's not a simple story, I have to say, but I suppose the more you dig into some people's stories there's always going to be fascinating nuances. I was born in South India. I've been based now in London for around 25 years. Also, I've never belonged to a faith or belief group. My parents are atheists, broadly atheists, and I'm practicing, and even the generation of my grandparents as well. There's atheism in my corner of the family. But wider than that, there is a quite traditional, entrenched religious feeling in my family of Hindu who just believes in my background. Coming from South India, it's not surprising, but also there are. I mean, I've got relatives who are Protestant, evangelical converts, buddhist converts, spiritual but not religious, kind of new age spirituality. So there's a wide apart from my corner of the family.

AJ: 8:48

I was exposed to a lot of religious aspects of growing up in India and when I moved over here because we're kind of cut off from the rest of the family, that also helped and I was given a free choice to choose whether to be religious if I wanted to. My parents are quite liberal and still are, and I was very privileged in that sense. I could have chosen to belong to a religion if I wanted to or any of the kind of movements or ideology, but I chose broadly atheism, agnosticism. I had a long journey and maybe we might get into this in future episodes or later. But being a very militant atheist passed through all kind of stages of arrogance and sort of science supremism, mixed in with teenage angst and testosterone which I kind of look back and cringe at now. And then I discovered humanism. I discovered spirituality as well, humanistic spirituality. It was always there but I never took it that seriously. Really, what was Carl Sagan saying? What were Bertrand Russell, aldous Huxley, very, very big things in the humanist movement who didn't want to sacrifice a human sense of all and mysticism and wonder and spirituality, these terms and I think what we can discuss a bit about, what I mean by humanism and what I mean by spirituality and understanding where I'm coming from, that didn't want to discard those things.

AJ: 10:13

So I began to see a way there that I'm a scientist by training. I have a neuro psychology background and I'm working now in AI, my paid work in automation and business. So I have a scientific cast of mind in some sense. And then I also have that philosophical, spiritual, mystical attraction, supposed to be a romantic attraction. That's also part of my identity as well. And humanism, I found, allows me to reconcile those two where I can be evidence based in my approach.

AJ: 10:45

Recent current events, covid or lockdowns, foreign policy politics or other kind of decision making, social justice, having an evidence-based approach to these things is good and that's part of the humanist ethos. But then also not sacrificing or not trying to ignore and staking out of that claim because other people in other faith and belief groups, who often want to target atheists or agnostics and say well, you guys are only living a half-life or you're missing out on that wonder, you're missing out on mysticism, you're missing out on that kind of awe that's uplifting and that creates like 100% churches and pieces of art and music and all of these kind of things. And I think a good part of the humanist camp is there and is and that's what really attracted me to humanism in terms of an identity. I wasn't looking for necessarily social justice and being able to volunteer. That drew me in.

AJ: 11:44

But then I began to see and discover there's this humanist identity and spirituality that enriches my life and gives me a framework to organise sort of things in my own head and in my own psyche that before were quite sporadic, but now I have a skeleton, a framework to put things in order and that helps me be more cognitively coherent, I think.

AJ: 12:09

And yeah, the rest is history. Then I started volunteering locally in London and then moved up to a national position as coordinator of young humanists, which I share with my colleague, nicole that position, who hopefully will join us in future episodes and she's based in Leicester. She's also a coordinator of young humanists. And then, as of last month, I started serving on the board of directors for the global humanist international body, which is a network and a global charity with links and members in many, many countries across the world and that has a completely different perspective on looking at what humanism and the roots of humanism in the Arab world, in Africa, in Latin America, and how that conflicts with quite strong faith and belief systems there. So what I'm very interested in into interfaith dialogue and global social justice, and so humanism really is watering all of these plants for me in many ways and, yeah, I'm quite excited on this as a philosophy for my life going forward.

James H: 13:17

Yeah, that's great. I think you can probably understand, listen, why we've invited AJ to be our regular contributor here, given all the things that he's involved with across the world. But I think one thing that might surprise people from what you said is the way in which you get a spiritual fulfilment from humanism, and one thing we hear a lot nowadays is people say I'm spiritual, not religious, but I think most people would draw a distinction between being spiritual and being atheist slash agnostic. So what does it mean for you to be a spiritual humanist?

AJ: 14:01

Yeah, that's a key question. And also, what does it mean for me to be a humanist? I should also address that For me. I think humanism we've seen humans and international has a great definition. The definition of modern or the declaration of modern humanism, previously called the Amsterdam Declaration which looks at the human in humanism, doesn't refer only to human beings, but human values, the human condition, the human psychology is all about empathy, it's about curiosity, it's about creativity. We're problem solvers. We were, you know, back in the hunter-gatherer days and my evolutionary past. We evolved past other organisms because we were problem solvers, we were storytellers, we were myth makers in some sense, all of these tools language, creativity, empathy, cooperation, altruism these are central facets of the human condition. Of course we also have anger and sex drive and many other kind of reptilian, almost lower, what we call lower functions. Again, with my neuro psychology, hat on that. We still have all of those and they are part of me, have to compensate for, understand that part of human nature. But that's what the human and humanism means to me and that's quite important because there's also sentientism and other sort of adjacent movements that can sometimes engage with us and say well, what about sentient organisms? So it's not only focusing on humans, it's also it's extending human values and prioritizing human values to everything we see around us, the cosmos, as Carl Sagan may say, everything that is, that was, whatever will be, including all of the natural world, other planets, our space environment, obviously, our ecology and flora and fauna here. So engaging with all of those in a democratic, evidence based way that shows care and concern and empathy for other sentient beings is, for me, what humanism means.

AJ: 15:57

Spirituality, the way that I define it, it's nothing really to do with spiritism or contacting the dead or the astrology. Spirituality for me. I look at it in terms of the idiom, the spirit of the law. If we consider the letter of the law, okay, he goes by the letter of the law, she goes by the letter of the law. That means that they have a very superficial reading of okay, whatever is there, I'll just take it on the outside, I'll look at the skin of the fruit. But for me, the spirit, spirituality, the spirit and spirituality is looking beyond what is the inner meaning, let's look beyond the outer. As Rumi, one of the great influences in my life, might say, we have to take the fruit inside, not the skin, and that, for me is what human spirituality is. So say if we're in this moment, if we're taking a walk, be in that moment.

AJ: 16:46

Mindfulness, I think, is part of humanist spirituality. We run a one life course in the central and humanist and online course that started over the pandemic Also hope he's doing in person and intro to humanism course, and one of the modules which I was lucky enough to contribute to is an everyday spirituality or humanistic spirituality. Meditation has been shown in scientific research to contribute to some health benefits, so there are quite tangible health benefits and reasons to include a humanistic spiritual outlook in your everyday life. That can help with anxiety, help with emotional intelligence and emotional stability, being a well balanced person. Without going into, I want to contact my dead grandma.

AJ: 17:35

The position of Venus, the time I was born, determined something. So of course, words can be used in many different aspects and we don't own the word humanism, we don't own the word spirituality, but we should be very proud. I think an open and transparent about how we're using it and why the way that we're using it could help some people. But I accept it may not be for everyone, certainly not all humanists, and maybe comfortable with that, but this is me.

James H: 18:00

Yeah, that's great and I think you touched on a really important point there that humanism, much like spirituality, can be quite a personal thing and there are definitions out there. Some are more complimentary than others. The answer to that declaration is a pretty good starting point, but what I found speaking with members and anyone in the movement really is it. It can have quite a lot of different meanings and that's something we're going to be focusing on. Our next event here with with Central London humanists and AJ you're going to be one of our speakers I think I think of that as well focusing on what does humanism mean on an individual level? So that will be on this September, the 18th Monday evening at the old diorama Arts Centre in Central London. We're going to be hosting a panel of our members from a very diverse set of backgrounds who've come to humanism for a variety of different reasons, sharing their experiences and why that's what they call themselves and what it means to them.

AJ: 19:14

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it and it's especially like you say it's. It's it's kind of a stereotype and an old joke. If you have three humanists in a room, you have five opinions, including on what actually humanism is, which is which is fine, and I think and I've always said this in some ways we are trying to have our cake and eat it, and maybe that's not unique to the humanist movement or belief system and it's by itself. Many other organizations, movement systems, ideologies, have to also confront this, and the larger you get and the more people by that definition enter the into the fray, then you know, too many cooks spoil the broth and they won't have their opinions, which is good, and especially as a movement that values individual expression, creativity, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and without having doctrines, especially like apostasy, or imposed penalties for leaving or the movement and many other belief systems have. Humanism says none of that, but we do want to try and have some coherence. Just for people who find us for the first time, it's confusing if you have 20 different definitions of humanism, so the declaration of one humanism and other declarations, and many groups have their own definitions, but what we can abstract and distill out of them is something that's very, very cool.

AJ: 20:29

Humanist UK has think for yourself, act for everyone, for example, that there's many ways to express it, just like in Christianity or Islam, there's many, there's no one fundamental. They may. They may say God is one or something, but there's many 10, 15 different ideas and concepts that capture many different aspects of their belief system. And it's the same with humanism. So, and having our members I mean in some sense sort of me talking is sort of the is is nothing great, greatly new or may not be very interesting to the average person.

AJ: 21:02

Because I'm kind of already in the movement and maybe I'm a bit bureaucratic, I use certain jargon, but hearing our sort of everyday, ordinary members some who just come to us social, some who just come to our book group, some who just come for walks, and they have a very different way to engage with humanism and they have very different concept of it Hearing them speak is always great and we try and have one of these at least a year, an intro to humanism, back to basics. But what is it? That's not philosophy or politics or these very intense topics that humanists love to talk about and certainly I do as well, having that very light touch, a very human face and not the usual same faces. We as organizers. It's good to see our ordinary members there and hopefully, if they speak for long enough, I wouldn't have to speak, so maybe just a backup, a backup speaker.

James H: 21:53

I think you're right, given that it's by definition. There's no dogma in humanism or humanistic values. It's tough sometimes to find okay, these are our unifying characteristics or these are our unifying beliefs. So I think I'm really looking forward to that event. I think it's going to be really fascinating to hear, even having been involved for many years now. It's good to remind yourself as well, and good to understand the different opinions and different views that people bring and just to see the diversity of opinions. And I think even in the five or six years that I've been involved, humanist movement has changed quite substantially, so it's good to be alive to new topics that are arising as well.

AJ: 22:39

That's what makes us different from crusty other faith and belief systems that are set in their ways and that are proud of not changing. It's going to be a thousand years of this or that does not make them future proof. Yeah, I completely agree.

James H: 22:53

Yeah, definitely. It's very agile, it's very progressive and constantly open to new ideas. Now, as mentioned, each episode will be bringing you an interview with someone else external to our group who's involved in humanism, and we're delighted that for our pilot episode, I was fortunate enough to speak with Rosalind Mould, who is one of the directors of Humanist International. So here's my interview with Rosalind talking more about her role both in Ghana and with Humanist International. Rosalind Mould, pleasure to have you on the podcast. Great to see you again. How are you doing?

Roslyn Mould: 23:34

I'm fine. Thank you so much for inviting me and having me on here.

James H: 23:39

My pleasure and it's great to see you again. We obviously saw each other yesterday for World Humanist Day. Did you have a good World Humanist Day?

Roslyn Mould: 23:49

Yes, I did. I mean thanks to Central London Humanist and Association of Black Humanists for organizing the program and yeah, we hope to see more of that. It was exciting to meet so many humanists from around the world talking about, you know, our challenges, our issues and our joys and successes. And, yes, it was really good meeting. Yeah, I enjoyed it.

James H: 24:12

It was great, yeah, and it was great to have you as our keynote opening speaker and telling everyone about the great work of Humanist International. I wonder, for our podcast audience, could you just explain what Humanist International is and your main areas of work?

Roslyn Mould: 24:30

So Humanist International is the biggest international body for non-religious people around the world and it's over 121, we have over 121 member organizations in 60 countries around the world so far and counting. And yes, it's been over 70 years since the organization was formed in 1952 and where they came together to form the Amsterdam Declaration and that was also revised in 2002. And the last one has been revised again in 2022, last year. And, yeah, we hold a lot of programs and also campaigns, not only to highlight and create awareness about humanism, promoting humanism and also humanists, but also to defend the rights of humanists and human rights for everyone around the world.

James H: 25:25

Yes, that's great, and can you explain the Amsterdam Declaration and what was included in the update in 2022?

Roslyn Mould: 25:35

Well, yes, so over the years, it's always trying to get something that is relevant to the times. So in 1952, back then, the organization was called the International Humanist and Ethical. It's a mouthful and over. In recent times, we decided to rebrand and to catch up with the modern ways of doing things the simpler the better, less is more and yes. So we changed the name from IHEU to Humanist International High or HI, and also the youth section, which was International Humanist and Ethical Youth Organization to Young Humanist International. Simply put, and also it's highly representative of us as humanists.

Roslyn Mould: 26:24

What we are now back from the way it was defined in 1952.

Roslyn Mould: 26:30

And I mean what we did was to add to what we the Amsterdam Declaration, what it was in 2002, to add to that, to how we're beginning to view issues social issues, I mean, when it comes to race, when it comes to gender, when it comes to sexual orientation.

Roslyn Mould: 26:50

All those inclusive ideas and ideas of diversity were added to it, and a lot of what is going on in terms of secularism and how democracy has become an even more important issue of late, given that there are a lot of conservatives and right wing forces around the world, in parts of Europe, in the United States and in Africa, Asia, you know, around the world there's been this push for the right, and so this is about time, and it's infringing upon the right to democracy, the right to freedom of speech, the right to freedom of religion and belief, and it's even more important that we have those things included in the Amsterdam Declaration. So, yes, there's a lot more that we did to emphasize and to make it more specific on what we expect and how we would like to live our lives now and define ourselves as humanists today.

James H: 27:52

Fantastic, and what are your main campaigns at Humanist International currently?

Roslyn Mould: 27:58

Humanist International has been doing so much work I mean way before I became a board member, the previous boards, you know. I'm always going to be proud of them for what they've done and built for us as a foundation for us to continue now, and now there's so much. We are even doing them ever before. Not only I mean, I mentioned about membership. Membership has really increased and we intend to even increase it further, especially for countries where it's not, it's not really free, you don't feel free to come out or to live your life as a humanist. We believe that there's a humanist everywhere in the world. It's just a matter of trying to let them know that there's an international community where they can be part of. So we are working a lot on membership.

Roslyn Mould: 28:45

We also have the freedom of thought report, which has become such an important document. It just started as an idea by one of our staff members, you know, into 2012, I believe, and today it's. I mean the United Nations, the governments of the United States, the UK, Netherlands, so many other countries are now looking to that report as the source of data when it comes to freedom of religion and belief, especially for non-religious people around the world. So like it's become something that we look up to and we want to continue on that path and we want to encourage people to contribute to the report so that we get more accurate figures and data information on what's going on in each country around the world, regardless of whether it's highly religious or not, and to know what level that people get to enjoy their freedom of religion and belief. And so we are working more on that and we continue to launch it every year around November. And we also have, very importantly, the Humanist at Risk campaign which has been going on in the last couple of years, which has also become you know, it just thought it as a good idea and so many lives have been saved through Humanist International that people have had to flee and when they needed help, they couldn't find it in any other part of the world and any other organization by Humanist International where the ones were able to come to their aid for them to flee from persecution and threats of imprisonment or even death. So we have a lot of people who have been able to flee. We've been able to facilitate for them to gain asylum in more progressive countries, I would say, and also to live more sustainable, like fulfilling lives, which is also a goal of a new policy, even for Humanist International.

Roslyn Mould: 30:49

So, unfortunately, we are still working on some cases and you know, finding out that my own friend, somebody I met through all this activism and all this quest to promote Humanism since we were, you know, when I started having these positions in the youth section Mubarak Bala is the Humanist Association of Nigeria president and I was, at the time, the president for the Humanist Association of Ghana. We met on so many platforms, we got to know each other, we became friends and to find out that, you know, just when he was married and just had a baby, he was arrested and detained for you know, speaking on his own accounts on social media about his non-belief, and today he's in jail for three years now and has been sentenced for 24 years in prison. And Nigeria is just three countries away from me here in Ghana and it's really amazing that you could be talking to one person in the next minute. The presence, freedom of movements, freedom, you know, is just taken away from him or her. So I can see that, how close it gets to whom, that it could affect any of us at any time, and that's why I feel more proud of what Humanist International is doing in terms of helping humanists at risk, Because what had happened to Mubarak could have happened to any of us, and he's still in jail and we are still fighting very, very hard, along with so many other volunteers, the staff, everyone, the board. We're taking these issues very seriously. There's also some others from Sri Lanka, and even one of our very own board members now has been, you know, under a threat. You know he has been receiving death threats that is Dr Leo Igwe from Nigeria as well, and so you know we take all these issues very, very seriously. From cases we get from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, we get over 100, almost 200 cases every day, with every year, with people asking for our help to either flee where they are or sometimes they just need not financial support, and sometimes, even more importantly, they need social support, not money as such, and so we need to come together, especially those of us who are a bit more privileged, to help those who don't have it.

Roslyn Mould: 33:17

Humanist International has been involved in so many campaigns. We have the advocacy sector, the advocacy department, where we have Elizabeth O'Casey, our advocacy officer, who's been doing tremendous work representing Humanist International at the United Nations. We are now holding a vice chair position on one of the on the NGO committee for freedom of religion and belief, which is a very, very big deal, and we are very, very proud of the work she has done for us and how fast she has taken Humanist International to be that recognized in such a huge institution and organization like the United Nations and a lot of the issues that we are facing in when a lot of these groups in member organizations are campaigning for women's rights, for children's rights, for gay rights, for any, you know, racial issues, issues of abortion and all these things. These things are taken seriously. We document them and then we are able to present them, when given the opportunity, at places like the United Nations and other relevant international bodies, especially those that speak on human rights. So, yes, we've been doing a lot of work there and to know that your country, your member organization, your voice is being heard, but across the world, you know, at state level, with all these representatives of the various governments around the world and hearing what is actually going on on the ground.

Roslyn Mould: 34:51

So I also commend not just the staff and the board, but especially to our members and our member organizations, and we encourage people to come and join if you're starting a small group. You know Central London Humanist, the Association of Black Humanists they're all in the UK but they're all doing something special here, and then we encourage them. You know other more people to form local groups. You can even have groups in your school or you know in your community or something, and then, you know, join with Humanist International. We need more minds that come together, more like-minded people like us. The more we can do, better we also have humanist professionals.

Roslyn Mould: 35:29

There are so many groups, especially in the UK, you know. We know there's a humanist society of Scotland. You know, a few years ago we're tend to have the highest number of humanist weddings than any other part of the world, and so we know that, yeah, it's something that is a great demand for, even from religious people, and they would like to have something more meaningful to celebrate their day, you know, whether it's a wedding, a funeral or something. So we are going beyond just catering to the humanist community but catering to anybody else who's values align with ours. And so, yeah, we're doing more training in those sectors and also in parts of the world where humanist minority, like in Africa, Asia, Latin America or South Africa, yes and so, yeah, these are a few of what Humanist International is doing, and there's so many things coming up and you will definitely hear about it, yeah.

James H: 36:30

There's so much you guys are doing and it's all incredibly impressive, but obviously sad to hear about some of the cases that still persist. And I agree. I think it's not just the more groups and more people who associate with being humanists, the more we can do. It's also it normalises it, particularly in some of these countries that you mentioned, where it's still quite a new idea. I'm interested to know your own background a little bit. What is your? Did you have a religious background, and what was your route to humanism like?

Roslyn Mould: 37:06

Wow, yes, it's always, you know, interested when I find myself talking again and again about it, because the more I talk about it and also reflect, I'm also so happy to be where I am, like now, as a humanist, even though it's been 15 years now. I've been identifying as an atheist, as a humanist, but it's always amazing when I talk about it. Yes, I was. I grew up in Ghana, I was born and bred here, and Ghana is a highly religious country 99% now, or 95% religious, that's how religious it is. It's affected or it's influenced or it's inspired by religion. Somehow, your schooling, your whole society, your whole community, everything you do before you eat, before you go to school, if you are at work, if you're even going to any party, a wedding it's all religion everywhere and people even become part of our language. People cannot understand how you can live your life without religion.

Roslyn Mould: 38:21

I was raised Catholic. I was baptized in a Catholic parish. My mother was Catholic and my dad is Anglican and I don't know why they decided. Usually families would decide that you should take your father's religion, but somehow maybe my dad was just okay with it. I've never had a conversation with him, but I was baptized Catholic and I attended Catholic schools from primary school, junior high school through to senior high school. Senior high school I went to Holy Child School, which is set up or built almost 80 years ago by the British. It's a very old school. My grandmother went to school there, my mother went to school there, my niece and I many of my cousins went to school. It's a very good school.

Roslyn Mould: 39:15

The indoctrination has just been everywhere and throughout my life. Even in high school was when I also got closer to some of my classmates who were Christian but not Catholic. I got introduced into the evangelical faith and I did start learning how to pray and how to worship in the more evangelical ways. So I did at a point have even some fundamental ideas and interpretations of the Bible and my beliefs, until I was in university. And then, during the time I was in university, I started to reflect on my idea of belief, but I wasn't thinking to become an atheist.

Roslyn Mould: 40:02

I realized that my mom died when I was four years old and I remember I started questioning as a child. They are saying she went to heaven, but I don't understand. Why is she going to heaven? She just had us. I didn't understand it at the time, but eventually I was able to convince myself that I mean everybody I love and I respect so much and I admire and I think are the most intelligent people in my life all believing God. So there must be God. This is insane to even question that. When you are in school, your mates will also say, hey, I hear if you question where God is or if he exists or something, you are going to go crazy. So of course, everybody is afraid to get some form of mental illness so you try not to question it, even if it is a case to you.

Roslyn Mould: 40:53

So after I graduated from the university, I was a lot of my friends at the time were Eastern Europeans that were working in Ghana, expats and stuff, and so I realized that most of them are not religious, even though they were baptized in Orthodox Christian faith and other denominations. So I felt it was my duty as a Christian, especially a confirmed Catholic, to use my gift of the Holy Spirit, which I believe was research and knowing more and being objective in my thinking. So gather all the evidence If there is God. There is lots of evidence out there. There must be a lot of people's written about all this evidence, so I'm just going to try to get that evidence so I can tell people about it. And, unfortunately for me, that was when I started paying more attention to documentaries. I didn't really read a book or anything. I didn't know about Richard Dawkins or any of these other writers, but I was just paying more attention to history lessons or history programs from especially when Christ's time, or Jewish history or other religions, and paying attention to scientific understanding of how life came to be and all that. And that was just totally contradictory to what I have grown to know, even though I'm educated. I wasn't really evolution and all those things were not emphasized in school. So I was really really shocked.

Roslyn Mould: 42:28

I went through about, yeah, I think, all the stages of grief, thinking about oh my God, I can't believe this, goodness me. So all this time I thought we were created and the world was created and this and that, and Jesus and Mary and Joseph, and are you telling me all that is not true, like no, it can't be. And so it was very difficult. It was like a whole year. It didn't take a day, it took about a whole year. Question and question and being scared to wake up and go crazy or go mad, and being scared that I'm going to be struck with lightning. God is going to send my lightning to strike me because I'm doubting, you know, and all that.

Roslyn Mould: 43:09

But eventually I came to accept that, yes, I think I'm the kind of person I believed in God because I thought it was true. So if it's not true, then there's no point in me believing in it. But how do I come out to the rest of my family? And my younger sister was the one who at the time I had become I was becoming an atheist, she was becoming more evangelical from a Christian faith. My young Monica so Monica even went further into it. But at the end she also made up her own mind about her beliefs. That, yes, she doesn't. She's beginning to doubt as well, and so and I remember the kind of backlash she had, for even leaving the Catholic church to another denomination was a very big problem.

Roslyn Mould: 43:55

So I was even more scared to come out, you know, and I was like, no, this is going to kill my grandmother than anyone else. And I was most scared of hurting her feelings or, you know, probably even her health, and she is somebody I love more than anything in my life. So I was most scared to come out to hurt my family. I was most scared of the repercussions that could come to me as a person and what my society, where everybody's going to think that I'm crazy, I'm crazy or something. But so it took me five years.

Roslyn Mould: 44:28

It took me five years and, luckily for me, that was just when my sister was one of the first of the 11 people that met from social media started coming out with their atheism on Twitter. And then they met in person and she was like Ross, you have to come see this. You would not believe it. We are not alone. We are not alone. There are other Ghanians like us and I was like what?

Roslyn Mould: 44:53

And I go to the meeting you know, and meeting after meeting, I even met one British guy who had lived in Ghana for about nine years at a time, who helped to encourage us to organize because he was a member of Humanist UK. So he gave us the idea that you know, you can organize, right, you can't just. You don't have to just meet, you can come together and form something that could mean something to you guys and to Ghana. And yeah, that's how it started. And so Humanist International at the time heard about us and that there was this young crop of Ghanians that were coming together and meeting regularly, and so they wanted to support us to organize the first conference in 2012, just a few months after we started meeting, and the meeting was very highly successful. We had Humanists.

Roslyn Mould: 45:43

Like that was the first time I met Dr Leo Igwe, and Leo Igwe was then doing his PhD from a German university. He was doing a thesis on witchcraft accusations in Ghana, and so, yeah, we got to meet him. We got to meet people from Nigeria, other people from Nigeria, from Sierra Leone, from Liberia, and by the end of the two, three-day conference, I was like amazed that not only am I not alone as a Ghanian, but there are other Africans like myself who do not believe, and they all came from different ways. And so I was like, yeah, I have a community, I'm safe, I know I'm not crazy, so I can come out. And that was my coming out story, that I eventually started coming out.

Roslyn Mould: 46:33

I saw pretending to be Christian when they asked me why go into church? Because I don't believe in God, and I could just say it out like that. And if it wasn't for the organization like Humanist International, young Humanist International, if it wasn't for my fellow other Africans coming around me, some still closeted, but at least knowing that they've got my back, that I have people I can talk to, that I have people I can share with, I would not have been able to come out. And from there I was able to come out and now and get so many positions Since 2014,. I've been elected for so many positions in the youth section and now twice elected as the first African woman board member of Humanist International.

James H: 47:22

And congratulations on that. So what is it like being openly humanist in Ghana today? It sounds like it's becoming more accepted, more common than when you were growing up.

Roslyn Mould: 47:36

Yes, it's not easy, I'm sorry, not like. My life is like you know, I'm so happy and everything is lovely. No, it's not. It's not easy at all. I mean, still, I would say that meeting other Africans or other Ghanaian humanists and hearing their journeys, their stories, I realize that I'm even more privileged. Some are more privileged than me and are freer, but I'm also a lot more privileged than a lot of us.

Roslyn Mould: 48:10

A lot of people have to pretend they are going to church or something just to come to our meetings. Like a lot of people cannot come out to their own parents for fear of being thrown out of their house and things like that. I mean, a lot of discrimination goes on. People don't trust you, and I faced that a lot. I felt it because I started losing friends. A lot of people just didn't want to associate with me or they wouldn't want to.

Roslyn Mould: 48:39

You know, come close to me because of all this idea that if you're not for God, you are against God, and for them that's a very dangerous person if you're not for God, and so, and they don't trust your morality, they don't trust your ethics. So, and you know, we have a lot of superstition in this part of the world. You know that you could cause illness to somebody if you're of the devil or if you're satanic and if you're not God. I mean, it's like Satan is the direct opposite. If you don't believe in God, you must be a satanic. There's no in between. There's no great in. There's no question about it. That's how we were. Most of us have been indoctrinated, and I used to be one of them, so that's why I even understand it. But how do I navigate through this country, you know, and finding jobs has not been easy, especially for me who is out there, and everyone knows I'm 80s, I'm feminist, I'm for gay rights. This is just not what people want to associate themselves with in Ghana. So it's really difficult even today.

Roslyn Mould: 49:49

To find some, you know, a partner or something is really, really difficult. Nobody wants to know you. You know some. Somebody might meet you and say they're in love with you, and this has not happened to me, but it's happened to a lot of people I know where. You know you can date somebody for years and then, when it comes to taking the next step, it becomes complicated and the family is not going to allow that. They're going to allow their child or you know to marry somebody who is not religious. And sometimes they use the reason that they don't want their grandchildren to be non-religious. They don't want their grandchildren to be having thoughts. They want their children and their grandchildren to continue to live in the faith that they know. And it's already difficult, especially if it's a Muslim, a lot of the Muslims, not all of them, but a lot of the Muslims. Would you know?

Roslyn Mould: 50:45

Even if you are Christian, you're supposed to change your religion. So when you are definitely non-religious, they can't trust you. What's your ethics like Then? How do you you know? How do you become a good person? Like because they believe that it's their Bible, it's their Koran, it's their beliefs and their faith and their even traditional worship that guides them on what to do and what not to do.

Roslyn Mould: 51:11

So if you say you don't believe, then that means you have no compass on what is right and what is wrong. And so if you think about it that way, you understand why nobody wants to be close to you. People think you're going to infect them. People think you're going to either lead them astray from their faith, and it's written in the Bible that thou shalt not yoke with unbelievers. So some of them will coach you, even finance speakers to some of our events. When they find out we are 80s, they don't want to have anything to do with us. Sometimes you even want to donate something or do some charity. Even the people who need the help. When they find out you are 80s, they don't want to have anything, take anything from you, because they think it's tainted with some devilish thing.

Roslyn Mould: 51:54

So it's not easy living in Ghana like that, you know, for finding a job, going to school, you know, finding a partner to settle with and all those things that every human being would like to have, those opportunities and rights to that. But unfortunately it's really, really difficult. Some of our members have been accused of witchcraft and taken to prayer camps and beaten and all that and abused. Some people have been thrown out of their homes by their own families and things like that. And especially if you're not financially independent I'm sorry you are at the mercy of your family telling you that, well, if you believe in God, your life will be better. You know, especially if you're facing difficulties in any way, they will tell you that you have to go back to the church, you have to go back to the mosque before your life will become better, and so there's a lot of pressure with us in Ghana.

Roslyn Mould: 52:55

Yes, we so far, luckily, we haven't had any issues of death or imprisonment, but we are not. I mean, we see a lot of that push coming from the conservatives and into our laws and our legislation that you know it's coming. It's coming especially with this current LGBT bill that we've been fighting. It says and humanists in Ghana are all supporters of the LGBT community and right now that bill is threatening to jail and imprison allies for up to 10 years, especially for me, one of the faces that is always on TV radio discussing these issues, so definitely I'll be one of the biggest targets when, when the bill is passed but hopefully it's not passed we have really fights and against it.

James H: 53:53

Yeah, it's incredibly brave everything that that you're doing, and the rest of the team there in Ghana, to raise awareness of these issues and hopefully, by the sounds of it, you're making life more tolerable and tolerant for the next generation. So thank you for everything, rosalind. Just before we go, one last quick question. This can be it can be a serious one or a fun one what is something that you have changed your mind about recently?

Roslyn Mould: 54:19

Wow, I've changed my mind about recently. No, definitely, I've been on learning a lot of things, and because I grew up with not just my religious beliefs, but cultural and societal, and, you know, superstition, a lot of superstition. So those have been able to, you know, debunk by myself and and and, and you know, start thinking logically about a lot of things. But I mean, and I'm still in on that journey, you know, and a lot of us, what we thought we knew was true. Now we have to question every, every single thing you know, and and and find out like, where is that coming from, you know, and also even check our biases when it comes to our ideas of what is what is more logical, what is more rational or not. So, yes, nothing comes to mind or jumps to my mind right now, but definitely I know that there's been a lot of things that we keep unlearn and have those aha moments, you know, from time to time like wow, oh, I didn't know, like you know things like that, and I think that's why it's more important that you know for people who were brought up or grew up in parts of the world where you were not even indoctrinated is good to have conversations with them so that they can understand what is going on, and I think that's why I'm really excited. I also get to see that perspective because there will be things that I wouldn't understand where you are coming from and because I had, I didn't grow up with those, with those ideas and advise myself. So I think that, yeah, that's why I'm really excited. I was really excited yesterday by the program we had, the event we had online yesterday, because listening to different perspectives, listening to what happens or cases to other people around the world is so important.

Roslyn Mould: 56:09

And, yes, we humanists in Africa and I've been working with and for African humanists for years now and listening to different sorry about that listening to different perspectives, because we are all in Africa but most of us are very ignorant about who each other is in Africa. That's why a lot of people don't know. I don't know who's, how South Africans live, I don't know how Zambians live, I don't know how Kenyans, tanzanians we are all very different. In fact, in Africa, places like Ghana is so diverse. We have over 50 languages, you understand. We have different cultures, completely different cultures the way we dress, the way we eat, the way we do everything. Nigeria is the same, has so many more languages and tribes and clans and it's so complicated, but we're all able to live peacefully and try to tolerate each other, and what I have been working on is trying to debunk all that superstition that is holding us back as a people, because Africa can move forward if you are more enlightened, if we put aside a lot of our traditional beliefs that have no logical backing, because a lot of what our ancestors did and I believe in our ancestry has a lot of wise wisdom, I would say wise sayings, and a lot of wisdom in how they live their lives. But also a lot of it is very outdated and a lot of it is not to our times.

Roslyn Mould: 57:41

The misogyny must stop. We must get rid of it and certain practices that enable or encourage misogyny must go. The patriarchy should fall. We have a lot of collection, bright prices for women and this idea that a man is the head of the house and men are rare, like jewels or something like that. This is all in our language to say that women are not as special or are not equal to men, and it's even difficult to discuss these issues with even the most educated people in this country.

Roslyn Mould: 58:19

The idea of sexual orientation. We were not homophobic before colonization. The British brought homophobia to our country. The law we have is a British law. It's not our law, it's not our ancestors law. But at the end of the day, what is happening it's?

Roslyn Mould: 58:34

People can't remember beyond 400 years ago, and so the idea is no, we don't like it, that's not what we are. That is not our culture. No, that is not our culture. Homophobia is a British culture. That is not our culture. So we need to go back and find well, how are ancestors used to live peacefully with France people, gay, lesbians, bisexual people and questioning people like we have all these things in our culture, but we didn't have labels for them, and so that even these are some of the things that we need humanists across Africa to be fighting on. The idea that if thunder lightning strikes somewhere, then it's the gods of the river or the gods of the seas that are causing. No, there's a scientific reason and scientific perfect explanation for why there's lightning, for why there's rain, thunder, storms and things like that, for why somebody died, and so you shouldn't accuse your grandmother, your alien grandmother, especially, of witchcraft and lyncher or abuse things like that. So there's so much work and learning for all of us to do, and we're all still on that journey.

James H: 59:52

And you're leading the way. Rosalind Mold, thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to speak with you and hear about everything, all the great work you're doing at Humanist International and in Ghana and across Africa. So have a wonderful World Humanist Day and speak soon.

Roslyn Mould: 1:00:07

Thank you. Thank you so much.

James H: 1:00:09

Rosalind Mold there, and since that interview was recorded, rosalind has actually been appointed Vice President of the Board for Humanist International, so she'll be bringing even more of that energy and passion to the movement. Going forward. Richard is out, and that's not the only announcement as well, because recently our own AJ has been elected to the Board with Humanist International. So, aj, would you like to talk a little bit about what that will involve for you going forward?

AJ: 1:00:38

Yeah, well, the first thing that will involve is working closely alongside people like Rosalind and, yeah, I'm concerned by Ros and so many other people that I've met. As I mentioned before, the local humanist movement and the activities, the socials, the campaigns, especially in the UK, is one thing, but going global and going to international humanist conferences has an incredibly different flavour and that's what really excites someone like me who's passionate about social justice and passionate about social justice who's passionate about diverse global perspectives on things that may be discussions that we may have in West London about, say, I don't know, church and state can be quite repetitive, maybe a bit old and recycled, but having that in the discussion of someone from Guatemala or Nepal or Malaysia or anywhere in Africa Nigeria, kenya that takes on a whole new fresh incentive and impetus. So that's what drove me to get involved with it when I was invited to join the Humanist International or Humanist UK attending a Humanist International event. Because, as part of me being a coordinator of young humanists, I was invited to Glasgow last year to the annual conference, a global conference, and again this year. Last month in Copenhagen we had the annual conference, congress of humanists globally, and Humanist International was a key organising figure there. As part of that, there were elections to the board in which I ran and I have to say that I'm able to start serving now as a director and a trustee of Humanist International, which carries some global responsibilities which are fairly daunting.

AJ: 1:02:20

This is my first foray into this kind of this level of NGO work, but I'm hoping to take what I've learnt at the grassroots and also kind of rising up to the national level of the humanist movement and also interfaith dialogue as well. I should also mention that I have some roles with the National Multi-faith Youth Centre, which is an interfaith charity that's undergoing registration and the board of that as a trustee, as well as also local and regional within the UK interfaith groups. So that's the experience that I hope to bring and also obviously learn from people like Rose and Andrew Popson and many other board members there who, from our first board meetings, it seems like it's going to be an exciting time for me to serve this term. So within Humanist International. One thing I should point out is I'm the youngest member by some years on the board, so that was part of my election campaign or speech.

AJ: 1:03:22

There was that, although I do have wider responsibilities, I'm the same as any other board member, for the whole of the charity and all of its aims. One aspect that I will have in my mind constantly and kind of ensure that that millennial perspective is brought into the board discussions is how to engage and develop youth globally, and we have a fantastic staff team, a executive team, management team, that do this, and we have young humanist coordinators all over the world. We have a humanist at risk campaign that helps directly many young humanists who are jailed, say, in Saudi Arabia and many parts of Africa, turkey, other parts of Europe that don't have a progressive, welcoming environment for humanists and free thinkers, and so we have a staff that are really are the real experts. The board oversees their work and ensures that it's in line with our aims, having that millennial perspective there, as I think, hopefully, if I do my job right, it should translate itself into the work that humanist international does and I hope to the international part of that phrase. I hope to honour a bit more by, as planned for unrelated my paid work might be moving to relocating to Malaysia soon, and that's part of that, and I think that's part of the Muslim Malaysian Humanist Association that was brought up at the Copenhagen conference, but see if I can contribute to that and the interfaith and interfacing between humanism and a majority Muslim country there I'm looking forward to, if everything goes to plan, so that as well, hopefully, should give me a global perspective and not just a UK-centred perspective, which I think we've got quite a lot of on the board.

AJ: 1:05:07

There's a few UK members me and Andrew Copsson, although he may be stepping down in two time. So it's important how the European perspective but it's not only that and being born in India, coming from that whole world, and also now, if I'm based in Malaysia, as I'm hoping to be, I'm also hoping to carry on the same work that I've been doing in London. Over there, if only I can find as fantastic a group as a humanist in the committee in Kuala Lumpur as I found in London. But we'll see. So that's some of the plans that I've got ahead for my work with HI.

James H: 1:05:43

Well, I think it's. It's reward for all the fantastic work that you've been doing, and many congratulations again, aj, on that new role and very much looking forward to hearing all about it in due course. I'll feed back here Over the podcast and, of course, at our events going forward. So this, typically in this part of the show, what we're hoping to do is answer one or two questions from our listeners. As this is our pilot episode, we don't have anything to draw on at the moment, but we can ask.

James H: 1:06:17

If you do have any questions on any of the specific topics we've spoken about today, or you're curious about anything to do with humanism, please do contact us. We'll put the contact details for Central London humanists in the show notes, as well as a direct email address to send your questions to. If you're interested in anything to do with Central London humanists, you can find us online. Meetup is probably our main page. If you look search for Central London humanists on there, you can see all of our upcoming events and what's the best way to get in touch with humanist international, aj.

AJ: 1:06:54

We'll go through our website, humanistinternational. You can also find us on socials and especially young humanists international have a different, adjacent parallel social media platform and you can also find me. Will include my socials links to the distribution of this podcast in the description as well. So please do. Would love to hear from you.

James H: 1:07:15

Yeah, and the humanist international sides as well has a comprehensive list of member groups. So wherever you are in the world, there is likely to be a local humanist group that you can join, and if you can't find one, like AJ was talking about in Kuala Lumpur, you can always start one and get signed up there as well. So with that, I think we've covered everything we wanted to for our first event. Aj, was there anything that we've missed or you'd like to bring up?

AJ: 1:07:45

I think that there was actually something in the program coming up about the black free thought event that I'm quite excited about. We could tell the listeners about that.

James H: 1:07:55

Yes.

AJ: 1:07:55

Yeah, later hosting.

James H: 1:07:56

Yes, thank you. So our next event in September is actually going to be co-hosted with our sister group, the Association of Black Humanists, who cover the whole of the UK, having started in London, and it's going to be a talk chaired by one of our members but also historian, si Martin, and we're delighted that we've got a guest speaker from the States, professor Chris Crammer, and to come and talk about the history of three thoughts in black America throughout the throughout the decades. He's been a scholar on this topic for a long time and we're delighted that he's going to be joining us in London. So that event will be on the 22nd of September, that's Friday evening in central London. And, again, the best way to find information there is through the CLH meetup page or the Association of Black Humanists website and meetup page. Again, we'll post all the details in the show notes.

James H: 1:08:58

So that was our first pilot episode for this new humanism podcast brought to you by the Central London Humanists. Aj, thank you so much for your time, my pleasure. Thank you, james. Thank you, listener. Please do send your feedback, your questions, your comments. We're really keen to make this a regular occurrence and we do want to make sure that we're answering, speaking to what our members and listeners want to hear. So until next time, thank you.